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Today in Mississippi
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March 2019
Traveling back in time to
Boler’s Inn
General William Tecumseh Sherman seized Boler’s Inn in Union on the night of February 21, 1864, after burning the city of Meridian during one of his infamous, destructive Civil War campaigns.
By Nancy Jo Maples Across from the Piggly Wiggly in Union, Miss., sits a very old house that holds more than a few stories worth telling. The structure is referred to as Boler’s Inn because at one time it was a stagecoach inn for travelers on a wagon route known as Old Jackson Road that runs through the middle of this small central Mississippi town. The inn’s most famous occupant wasn’t a welcomed guest – it was Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman who seized the building on the night of February 21, 1864, after burning the city of Meridian during one of his infamous, destructive Civil War campaigns. He had destroyed Meridian, uprooting its railroads and leaving most of its people homeless and horrified. Sherman had been in Meridian since Valentine’s Day that year and was headed to Canton when he spent the night at Boler’s Inn. Sherman did not burn Union. Local legend asserts he spared it because he likened its name to the Union Army. Sherman’s personal memoirs mention his stay in Union and he marked the town’s name with quotations; however, the journal does not elaborate on why he didn’t bother to burn its buildings. Ironically, while Sherman slept in Boler’s Inn, members of the Boler family fought for the Confederate Army. Although he left the town standing, Sherman and his troops, which numbered as many as 28,000 according to local historian Ralph Gordon, camped in the surrounding area stealing meat, livestock and tools from folks living within several miles of Union. “If at all possible, the residents would hide their tools and the meat from their smoke houses,” Gordon said. “Sherman’s troops took anything and everything that they could, and if they couldn’t take it, they would destroy it.” Another pre-Civil War structure nearby is the Jack Vance descendants’ house at the New Ireland community three miles west of Union where some of Sherman’s men found shelter while he slept at Boler’s Inn. One anecdote associated with Sherman’s stay is that his payroll clerk buried money for safekeeping the night they were in Union. The tale goes that the clerk had been wounded and died before dawn. The money was never found. Treasure